https://cleantechnica.com/2019/08/24/way-to-dump-all-the-good-news-about-wind-power-on-a-friday-afternoon-doe/
[I'm posting this item not so much for the good news about wind power,
which should not be news to readers on this list, but because it
illustrates the uphill battle renewables are fighting against captive
regulators and politicians and the massive power and financial resources
of the fossil fuel industry. Despite these odds, the coal industry is
disappearing and natural gas is next in the sights of renewables for
electricity generation. The issues holding back renewables - like
electric cars - are not technology or economics or suitability. The
real battlefields where the fossil fuel industry is dug in is at senior
levels of government where power is concentrated and therefore less
expensive (lobbying) to control. The oil industry goes down when we
remove the massive subsidies from taxpayers which make them financially
viable.
links in online article]
Way To Dump All The Good News About Wind Power On A Friday Afternoon, DOE
August 24th, 2019 by Tina Casey
The US Department of Energy buried some good news about the US wind
industry earlier this month, and now all of a sudden the floodgates are
open. On Friday afternoon the agency promoted three new annual reports
recapping the state of US wind power in 2018, including utility scale
onshore and offshore wind, and distributed wind. Together, they track
the rise of wind power — and the fall of coal.
Dumping All The Good News About US Wind Power
So what’s with the Friday news dump? After all, releasing major news on
a Friday afternoon is a classic PR strategy for burying bad news, and
the three new reports are ripe with good news. Well, unless you are
someone who promised to save the US coal industry.
Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes dropped a hint in that
direction in Friday’s press release announcing the three reports,
stating that “this Administration has proven that we can pursue
renewable energy advancements and deployment, particularly wind energy
resources.”
In his next breath Menezes hammered home the point with this comment:
“U.S. offshore wind is poised to be a significant part of our
comprehensive energy portfolio in the coming years.”
That’s not particularly good news for other energy sources that have,
until now, staked their own claim to that “significant part.”
In particular, so much for saving all your coal jobs, as was often
promised by the Commander-in-Chief of this Administration. Energy
consumption is flatlining and a global recession is waiting in the
wings. Coal already has zero chance of a revival in the power generation
sector, and Menezes all but said out loud that offshore wind will pile
onto existing market pressures (looking at you, natural gas) that are
squeezing coal out of the power generation market.
Industrial coal is also getting set up for a hit as the steel and
aluminum industries, to name two, look for alternative energy sources.
Wind Power Catching Up To Natural Gas, Too
Natural gas stakeholders should also take the new reports as a warning
sign. One of the them is the 2018 Wind Technologies Market Report for
utility scale onshore wind. It makes the case for wind competing on cost
with natural gas for power generation in some markets.
The Wind Technologies report demonstrates that onshore utility scale
wind power is a nationwide trend with utility scale projects operating
in 41 states, accounting for a fairly impressive 6.5% of overall
electricity generation. Some states far exceed that, venturing up to the
30% range. That’s significant in terms of building resiliency into
state-level energy policy, rather than relying on long gas supply chains.
For the record, a separate press release announcing Wind Technologies
report hit the Intertubes back on August 12, but it was lodged in an
obscure page on the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory website. Go
figure!
Offshore Wind Power Catching Up To Onshore
Of the two reports freshly announced on Friday afternoon, the 2018
Offshore Wind Technologies Market Report plants the biggest, reddest
flag for fossil energy stakeholders.
That report totes up a potential generating capacity of 25,824 megawatts
for offshore wind power projects already in the pipeline among 13 east
coast states and the Great Lakes. That includes 30 megawatts for the
Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, which is currently
the only offshore array producing wind power in the US.
By comparison, utility scale onshore wind in the US took a good 30 years
to reach a total capacity of 96,433 megawatts in 2018.
The key difference, aside from economic and policy drivers, consists of
improvements in technology and scale. Both onshore and offshore turbines
are getting bigger and better.
As impressive as the east coast offshore pipeline is, there’s plenty
more megawatts where that comes from. The new offshore report also notes
that wind power development on the west coast is beginning to take
shape, in the form of floating wind turbines designed for the
technologically challenging waters of the Pacific states and Hawaii.
The Distributed Wind Revolution
The third report is the Distributed Wind Market Report. As defined by
the Energy Department, distributed wind refers to turbines of any size
that generate electricity for use on site.
Distributed wind also includes rural electric cooperatives and other
distribution utilities (those are the ones who make the final connection
from grid to onsite users).
DOE further breaks down the distributed sector by size. The small,
distributed wind category includes all turbines with a capacity of up to
100 kilowatts, and that’s where some interesting action is taking place.
Here’s the explainer from the Energy Department:
Of small wind turbines (nameplate capacity up to 100 kilowatts) deployed
in the United States, very small turbines—less than 1 kW— are
contributing an increasingly larger percentage of both the total number
of turbines (99%) and capacity (47%) of small wind projects. These
systems are often used for battery charging and are sometimes integrated
with solar PV panels to power remote infrastructure.
Interesting, right? As a group, distributed wind turbines are getting
bigger, but small wind turbines (aka micro wind turbines) are getting
smaller. If you have any thoughts on that, drop us a note on the comment
thread. Meanwhile, CleanTechnica is reaching out to DOE to see if that
trend shows signs of sticking so stay tuned for more on that.
Another interesting trend is the increased use of distributed wind in
the commercial and industrial sectors. In 2018 the lion’s share (47%) of
capacity was staked out by distribution utilities, but commercial and
industrial users contributed a healthy 29% to the year’s total.
Onward & Upward For Renewable Energy
The Energy Department also dropped another tidbit of good news for
renewables on Friday.
The agency has earmarked $13.5 million for cutting edge bioengineering
research that will leverage quantum dots, among other new technologies,
to snap a more precise picture of the metabolic processes within living
cells.
“Such capabilities will be important in the effort to reengineer plants
and microbes for bioenergy conversion and production,” says the Energy
Department.
Hold on to your hats!
--
Darryl McMahon
Freelance Project Manager (sustainable systems)
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